Drabble 3
by Rayne-Jelly
Summary: A series, mini, of unconnected Spander drabbles no context, no interference, just random mush. Enjoy
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: When my mom was pregnant she couldn't wash my dad's socks (smelly smelly feet) without needing to vomit. That lovely little anecdote has inspired this piece of sacharine fluff. Enjoy.

-

Xander doesn't bitch about blood on the kitchen counter. Spike doesn't need to breathe when he washes Xander's socks. Xander cooks for two, then Spike does the dishes. They always leave each other enough hot water in the shower. It might not be the whirlwind romance of the century, but Spike's not looking for Romeo & Juliet and Xander appreciates the comfort. It's good, and there is love.

-

Toldja.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **I decided to take Drabble 3 and just add to it, I didn't feel like creating new stories every time I get a nibble from an anti-plot bunny. This drabble is in no way connected to the previous one (or the ones to come) unless you want them to be. Enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **In so many ways do I not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'd count them, but then we'd be here all night.

* * *

Spike liked to slowly climb up the bed, liked to lay one firm and skinny leg on either side of Xander's thighs, and relax on top of him, curled up like a very small child. He liked the feeling, of having someone firm, and warm, and bigger than he was because he was never afraid of crushing Xander like he'd been with Dru, or Buffy. Never thought for a moment that he'd be too heavy, and that Xander would push him aside – big, solid, warm, pinned Xander. Xander suspected he did it because of the heat – did it because deep down he was still the big bad, and he would protect Xander from any nasties that came knocking. Spike suspected Xander allowed it because he was cool in the stifling Sunnydale heat, and because he liked the feel of someone near. Neither mentioned that sometimes Xander had difficulty breathing at night, or that Spike was grateful and afraid; because even if he wanted to, Xander would never have the strength to push him away. 


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: apparently I'm in a drabbly mood. Undoubtedly more to come.

* * *

"I don't get you." He stated one evening. He was dark and mysterious now, the girls, if he cared, wanted inside his head, inside his pants, and he used it. He dressed darkly now, kept his hair trimmed, wore leather like he killed the cow himself and had won its skin by right of conquest. The eye patch added a genuine allure that turned him into a smirking modern day pirate on the seas of humanity. He was sexy now, and confident, and dangerous. "I thought you would appreciate me more this way." 

It had been several years since they'd last seen each other, Spike had changed little, Xander had apparently died. "I loved you when you were human."


	4. Chapter 4

**Note:** This isn't my favorite drabble, no particular reason why, but I thought I'd post it as sort of an apology for the last one which I liked a hell of a lot better. Ah well. Also I'd like to just say "thank you" to **Ingridmr,** should you ever read this know that I deeply appreciated all the reviews you've sent me on all of my Spander stories.

* * *

Xander rocks. Not in the traditional teenaged fantasy of owning your own guitar, beating the hell out of the villain, wooing the girl of your dreams, and still having somehow effortlessly perfect grades. No, he rocks in the physical sense, back and forth, one finger nearly in his mouth leaving tooth marks as he sits cross legged on the bed, reading his comics oh-so-slowly because he really takes time to appreciate the scenery or more often lose himself in grown-up thought. The other hand cradles his head – always ready to turn the page, but only doing so when all available information has been absorbed. He rocks in time to his own heart beat, Spike knows, and doubts he knows he's doing it, because things like heart beats aren't things humans notice, and he doubts that anyone else has witnessed this phenomenon of movement. Such minute little motions of back and forth, back and forth, as though his bones refuse to lay still in his skin and every thick, powerful pump rocks him forward, he doubts anyone else has noticed, doubts anyone else has seen him this still. It reminds Spike of other things, early in the afternoon where he can watch unobserved and uncared for, the rocking reminds him of other things, mother's favorite chair, Drusilla's madness, sex: and he wonders what Xander would do, how he would move, would he rock, if Spike stopped his heart? And the question is almost worth answering. Spike is fascinated by Xander lost in his head, and finds himself thinking far too much about that heart beat. 


	5. Chapter 5

I'm pretty much positive that this isn't worth posting - it's a wee bit long for a drabble and unmitigated mush. It's mush with no context nor cannon, though I suspect with some key points changed this could be the summer after season 6 of BtVS. There are no excuses and I suspect my brain will be throwing up a lot of violent/angsty/dramatic compensations for this. Ah well, that's why it's in my drabble fic. Enjoy.

* * *

The demon of the week had come and gone in a wild flurry of panic and orange plasma, but not before it had knocked Buffy unconscious and thrown her through a concrete wall. Not before it had thrust a blue pincer-like claw through Spike's gut, not before it had cracked Xander's skull against an aptly named headstone, seriously concussing him, and not before it had left them all in an empty grave yard to bleed to their first, second, or third deaths. Anya had rescued them all, saved their lives and miraculously had not demanded payment for it – Buffy got up, kicked the demon's scaly blue behind and insisted they all stay in bed for at least a week to recover, which no one complained about much. Spike tried not to comment much on Xander's purpled face and bandaged head, and Xander tried to bite his tongue about the pink and ropey scars on Spike's stomach where he knew, just knew because he had seen it, intestines had been spilling out of his lover's torso. Tried, but didn't do a very good job of it.

"I'm glad you're not human."

Spike didn't even blink: "Me too pet, but why's that?"

"Because if you were human you would have died in 1924 and I never would have met you. And because if you were human I'd have to watch you grow old and die and I apologize in advance for doing that to you but I'm not leaving until it happens. And because if you were human I'd be watching you die right now instead of kissing you better."

"Well…" Spike said primly, unable to respond to that without gently fingering the bandage on Xander's head, knowing that if the demon had used any more force, even a fragment of a pound, that Xander's skull would have split like a rotting pumpkin and they wouldn't be conversing at all. "When you put it like that… sometimes I wish you were immortal too."

"Done." An invisible voice from an invisible presence within their bedroom, unheard and unnoticed, but Anya had finally claimed her wish against her former fiancée – with no strings attached. "You're welcome by the way, and you know you might have at least thanked me for saving your hides, but do I get any appreciation? No, it's all 'I have to go kill the bad guy now' not even enough time for a cup of coffee. Sheesh, you know if…"

Well, maybe one string.


	6. Chapter 6

**Note:** I found this burried in a notebook squashed under a Blue Oyster Cult symbol and dug it up again this after noon while I was reading (bored) at work. I thought you'd appreciate the sort of... sad sweetness of it. Thanks again to Ingridmr for being a beautiful and supportive, wonderful soul.

* * *

Pointing at a photograph in his dotage "There's Buffy, Willow, and Dawn – even Tara's in that picture… from before she died. One of the happiest years of our lives, and one of the scariest." 

"Pet…" said Spike gently, taking an old hand covered in crepe paper skin, "That's Willow you're talking to, she knows."

Xander spared the woman a glance, hair white, green eyes faded to grey, deep wrinkles of a full life. "No." He said, and stroked the picture.


	7. Chapter 7

Just after sunset Spike walked through Xander's front door to pick him up for patrol and found something absolutely… strange. He gaped for very long moment as the boy sang along with… Jesus. "Ohh, let me hear your heartbeat go faster faster…" 

"Mate, what the hell?"

Xander spun around but didn't stop his dancing around his kitchen, spinning in an astoundingly well practiced move to deposit a stack of plates in a cupboard. "I learned my passion in the good old fashioned school of lover boys…"

"Are you possessed?" Spike asked, with very good reason as Xander slinked up to him with a move that looked like it belonged in Chicago and tapped him on the nose. "Drunk?"

Finally stopping Xander said in reply "You're telling me you don't fucking love Freddy Mercury?"

"He's been dead for years, mate."

"So've you. You telling me you don't love the music?"

"No."

"Just take me back to yours, that will be fine. Oooh love, ooh lover boy…"

Xander returned to emptying the dishwasher, slightly more sedately as the track flipped, and Spike just laughed.

* * *

Quick note: 1. Xander and Spike are definitely not lovers in this drabble, because it's so much funnier if they're grudging acquaintences/friendlyish. 2. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy lyrics are from Queen, not me. Obviously. 3. Chicago the musical... not the city. 


	8. Chapter 8

A drabble in three parts - from Xander's perspective, obviously. Unbeta'd.

* * *

He's not the smiling type. He's the sneering type. The sneering type that expects you to take and dish a lot of abuse, and if you can then he just sneers along and leaves you sitting in the dust feeling like a fool. Of course, he would do that anyway, leave you sitting like a fool in the wake of his sheer presence, but at least if you can hit him back, retort, then he leaves you a _blessed_ fool. It's a little ironic for a demon.

And when he loves you… when he loves you things aren't different at all. He's still the sneering type, and men don't change. Not even men that aren't men, but certainly aren't girls, and don't fall into any gender because they're sexually attractive to both – he's not a man, but he has a penis and a sneer. Except that the taunting is friendly, and only when you're sick, or you've hurt yourself, or you've done something stupid and everyone is laughing – but he's laughing _kindly. _It's a little unusual for a demon.

But when you love him things hurt.He doesn't hurt you, he can't, or he won't, or he thinks it's crueler not to, or to keep you living in hope. He won't hurt you, but you hurt you. Imagining him, smiling at him, holding onto a burning ember that tortures you even as you cherish it. The act of loving him hurts you. He understands, he's not mean about it, and that perhaps is more painful, makes you love him more. It's hard to remember that he is a demon.


	9. Chapter 9

"Spike?" Xander asked cautiously of the vampire in his closet, "What are you doing?"

"Dead bugs and hair…" Spikde said fervently, clutching at his elbows and crazy was not a good look on him. "Her hair, always her hair."

"Who's hair?"

"Like yours in the bathroom sink." The vampire shot in a startling moment of lucidity before sinking back down into the nightmare. "I used to brush it. She played with dead flies and dead beetles, dirty crawling things. Everywhere blood and skin and rot!"

"Spike?"

"THERE'S RUST IN MY HEAD!" he bellowed, and Xander backed away nervously.

Bewildered and frightened by Spike's behavior, he rummaged around in his utility closet, returning to his pseudo-friend with a bottle of Lysol and some rags, handed both of these to Spike among mutters of 'filthy crawling things' and said "Let's clean it up then."

* * *

This somewhat awkward drabble was brought to you by a shower thought, an anxiety attack, and a poem about my bathroom: 

Anxiety Bathtub

There are spiders in my head

Outside the walls of my skull,

I go around squishing them

Leaving rotting corpses in my wake and in my bathroom.

I fear them post mortem.

Like a visceral skeleton b-movie scream

But the green/brown guts won't wash.

My hair clogs the drain

Reaches up to me to tangle in my toes and on my fingers,

Imprisons me in my dead cells,

A persistent reminder of mortality

Beginnings of the corpse to be

And at night the spiders crawl into my head.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hah! You know what's sad?" Xander thought about that statement for a moment and qualified it before Spike even had the time for an affirmative rumble "And I mean sad because I thought of this, not sad because of the actual thing because the actual thing's damned funny…"

"What's sad, Xand?"

"No one can ever tease Angel about his mid-sex face. Since he never gets to have sex."

"You're right… that is sad. I cannot believe I missed the fact that you were gay."

"Not gay."

"Right… and thinking about Angel's mid-shag face makes you completely innocent of gayness."

"Didn't say I was straight either."

* * *

No excuse, I was just reviewing Neverland trying to get their pants off (this will make sense later. probably) and came across this and the following. 


	11. Chapter 11

"I am not one of you twits – you couldn't find your arses with both hands and a flash light."

"You may want to qualify that statement Blondie Bear, finding my ass with a flash light on the hell mouth means it's probably across the room." Xander retorted, and pressed on, "Face it. You're one of us. If we lived in a sitcom you'd be in the opening credits, Spike the Vampire, playing the role of 'necessary evil and occasional truth sayer.'"

"Oi! That's not on, I'd be a guest star, at least… not part of the regular cast."

"The fact that you've adjusted enough just to carry the analogy speaks for itself."

"It also means you watch too much TV. Sitcoms. Psh."

"Spike…" Xander said carefully, as though this statement was the argument to end all arguments, "You watch Passions."


	12. Chapter 12

This one has been in my drabble document since the drabble document began :D - it's actually been around longer than that, but for some silly reason I never got around to putting it up here. If it shows up in a story somewhere... that's probably why. Enjoy.

* * *

The phone rang, it rang, and it rang, sometime during the second call Spike woke up, and got up to answer it, "George and Martha Harris, Martha speaking."

There was a muffled snort and brief fumbling on the other line while Xander scrambled to re-claim the phone, "What the… Spike do you always answer my phone like that?"

"Would you like me to, pet?"

"Not an answer." A brief pause, "And stop leering, I can feel it from here."

A startled squawk, "It's a facial expression!"

"Spike… that 'facial expression' is so tangible you could put it in bottles and market it."

Proud, "Yeah, but how would you label it."

"Easy – sex in a bottle: side effects may include skepticism or uncontrollable laughing."

"Oi! Thanks for that mate, think you've got a real friend then he goes and says somethin' insulting, uncontrollable laughter my foot…" Xander chuckled on the other end of the line, listening to Spike grumble for a few minutes. "What're you callin' about anyway? Woke me up you did."

"…er…."

"Right. Call me back when you remember."


	13. Chapter 13

I was bored at work and in need of cuteness, so I provided some for myself. Enjoy.

* * *

"I love you." 

"What?" If his heart had been beating, it would have stopped then. Panic skittered down his spine, followed closely by a rush of wonder, elation, and a supreme desire to tackle Xander from where he was, surrounded by cable and wiring, trying to figure out the new entertainment center. Spike hadn't stolen it. "No you don't."

Xander shook his head affectionately and went back to his electronics, "Spike, you're an idiot."

"Oh." There was a long pause full of incredulity and amazement: Spike's hands shook. "You love me?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." That moment, as in many before, Spike loved him too. "Hey! I'm not the idiot here!"

"Yeah? Did you want to come figure this stuff out? Because frankly I could use the help."

"Can't mate, I'm allergic to technology."

Xander snorted, and rolled his eyes dynamically. "Dumbass."

* * *

I think this might be the first time Xander's said it. To counter the sheer adorableness of confused Spike I'll probably be providing you something scary next. Then again, I always say that and it never turns out that way. Maybe I should rename this file to read "The place where Jelly indulges her sappy side." 


	14. Chapter 14

So - I was reading through some old Spander that I have stored on my hard drive (mine of course, and no one elses) and in the great tradition of any fanfictionist (okay, so I don't actually know that, but I do this all the time) I take bits and pieces of other stories that will probably never in a million years get finished, and I tack them onto other projects. Bear in mind that the bulk of this story (or the document from whence it came) takes place in 2008 and was loosely based on the famous Angel/Spike/Wesley/Gunn Astronauts versus Cavemen argument. I thought it was funny, so I'm sharing. Jelly.

* * *

"If there was another plane with planets, and a being on that plane traveled from one planet to another and then crossed into our plane, would he be a demon or an alien?" 

"What the… Harris, how the hell do you come up with these things?"

"Too much TV, demon or alien?"

"Demon, if he's from another plane then… Demon, definitely."

"But he's from another planet…"

"So? Planes and planets, all demons are technically alien, but that one would be a demon, definitely."

"I always thought the difference between demons and aliens was really like… phaser guns and ancient runes and stuff – the technology. Aliens use a whole bunch of shiny metallic stuff with buttons and invisible doorways and demons are into the whole gaudy jewelry and magic paraphernalia, melty candle wax and stuff like that…"

"Are you saying that demons can't be technologically advanced?"

"Well… kinda, demons definitely are definitely less at home with the blinking lights and the robotic probes…" Xander nodded sagely, "In my experience they're more about the rip your heart out and eat it."

"Oh come on, I haven't threatened to rip your heart out all week."

"See!"

"So you're saying that demons never use technology?" Spike asked with a violent arm gesture towards his computer, "Never?"

"Psh, that heap of junk is at least five years old…" Xander started, and Spike cut in with "I've got limited funding!"

"And you've got your fair share of demony junk."

"Oh please, like what?" Xander very pointedly looked at a sword with a line of Brectian runes carved into the cross guard. "That does not count! You need one of those to kill Kretch demons!"

"Yeah, I totally won that round."

"Did not!"


	15. Chapter 15

Clearly we're looking at Spander here, just clearing that up since I never give Xander a personal pronoun.

* * *

He spends all of his time unlocking the doors. Poking and prodding in secret places that smell of dust and of mystery: a known terror unto itself, having never truly known anything. Spike spends all of his time putting him back together, reading the hidden manuscripts and searching out the documents of his soul that have been lost or tarnished by time. There's never been anyone that could read his cuneiform, and Spike is as close as it's ever come. His mind is superheroes written on papyrus. The vampire gives them names and faces and makes them real. Makes sense only to them and their secret museum language baffles all that know them until they're not sure they know them at all. He was never sure of the transition between he and Spike to them. They speak and read and know each other purely with paint and passion – and in the centuries that's all that was important.

* * *

I have no idea what brought that on. Spending all day hiding in my bedroom, freezing and daydreaming. Don't blame me, blame Africa. 


	16. Chapter 16

This is unadaulterated sap, and a little heavy on the exposition - possibly to counter the confused almost-poetry of the last drabble. I'm not sure it's worth posting, but hey, everyone like's a little tooth rotting sweetness now and again, hey?

* * *

Every time Spike crawls into bed next to his sleeping partner, the posture is different. Xander falls asleep in different moods and it is always up to Spike to sort out how to curl around them. Sometimes Xander sprawls on his stomach, arms and legs splayed out, content with himself and his grasp on the world and it was heartening to see. Those mornings Spike lays half on top of him, cheek pressed to the plane of his broad shoulders. Other nights Xander curls over on his side, pathetically clutching at mounds of the wadded-up blankets, defensive and vulnerable, but never cold. Those nights Spike slides in behind him, wraps his arms around Xander's chest and presses gentle kisses into his hair, leeching the generous heat. Xander only ever uses blankets and comforters as extra padding, never for the warmth; sleeping with him, Spike finds he doesn't need them either. Tonight Xander is on his back, snoring on his side of the bed, one arm flopping into Spike's territory. Spike smiles, slowly slides over that arm, resting comfortably against Xander's chest as the human makes his automatic adjustments, arms curling around the vampire, tugging him closer and holding him there. "Mmm." Xander says on these nights, still asleep, "Spike…" and Spike decides he likes being a bedtime barometer.

* * *

Toldja. 


	17. Chapter 17

Make what you will of this. It could be distinctly perverse, or it might just be cuteness. I'm not entirely sure myself.

* * *

Xander noticed something. It was a long time coming given how they'd lived together for years now, done everything imaginable and some things he hadn't dared imagine, and then done them all over again with chocolate for variety. Several years of this and he finally noticed. Spike could sing. Well, so could he, but Spike actually used notes, and put them in the correct places. A rich and frankly sexy baritone full of notes in all the right places and it had taken Xander _years _to notice. No one had ever accused him of being smart, but once he cottoned on an entire symphony of possibilities opened up before him. "Spike?" He asked, and the vampire said "mm?"

"Could you do me a favor?"

"Mm?"

"Could you hum a little something for me?" Spike chuckled, definitely a chuckle, amused and blessedly non-mocking, and got on with humming.


	18. Chapter 18

I desperately needed something that wasn't sappy. Possibly horrific. But not sappy. :D

* * *

"Spike…" It was cold and Xander's wrists hurt, there was blood in his eyes, his or someone else's, and he tried to blink it away. "Spike… please what are you doing?" More cold, his limbs were water and helpless, the vampire was humming something completely tuneless and it sent shivers up his spine – or maybe that was the fingers brushing against his naked back. Goosebumps followed the trail, icy and he began to pant with the fear of it. "…spike…" the word was short, gasped out, crushed under the scream that wanted to take its place, the vomit that was pushing bile into his throat. "please…"

"Shh." A cold tongue, slick and terrifying traced the blood across his temple, ended it in a kiss at his hairline, Xander could feel tears slipping down his face, cold with everything else.

"Please… Spike… are you going to kill me?"

Shh.


	19. Chapter 19

Here's a note, or maybe a warning. This was supposed to be cute and fluffy, and turned into something slightly shadier. I don't know exactly, it could be just anxiety and an unwillingness to believe that the vampire that keeps coming back has come back, and it might be cute and fluffy after all. I kept thinking, and this is cruel, that Xander's gone a bit round the bend, he's maybe delusional. Maybe Spike's real, maybe he isn't. That was probably too much exposition for a drabble this short. All I know's it's about the shoes.

* * *

Xander stepped through the front door of his small and lonely apartment, was going straight to the kitchen to crack open a beer, and was impeded by a pair of boots. Big, black, familiar, clunky boots. "Spike!" He yelled, irate out of sheer habit even as he toed off his own trainers. Then it hit him. Like a brick, like an anvil, a Mack truck, or possibly a freight train it hit him. Spike's boots, Spikes big, black, familiar, clunky, toe breaking boots – Dead Spike's boots and Xander's heart was caught up in his throat as he spun around to verify that the boots were still there. "Spike?" 

"What?" Said a voice from behind him, the same familiar put-upon tone, and Xander didn't dare to turn around. "You woke me up."

"What the hell are your boots doing in my parlor?" He choked out the words, and placed one bare toe against the muddy ones of Spike's discarded boots.

"You call this a parlor?"

Just like old times. So afraid that if he turned around he'd see nothing but his empty walls, so afraid of hoping there was someone there. Xander smiled so hard that tears slipped down his face, and focused on the shoes.

* * *

Toldja. 


	20. Chapter 20

If you've ever uploaded a document here at you'll see that they like you to label your uploads so you can keep track of what's what. Each of these drabbles (this one and the ninteen that preceeded it) had different names that I didn't bother to put into the chapter titles because this is a drabble book and there would be no point.

This one (pay attention now, you'll need this) was called "The One About the Toilet Paper" and that's all you need to know.

* * *

"I just don't understand how she… is such a girl all the time. With the emotions and the pouting. Eugh."

"It's women and men, Spike, it always will be."

"Well… you know what they say – men may fold and women may crumple, but in the end we're all just wiping our arses."

Xander paused thoughtfully, nodding in the information before his pickled brain picked up on the important bit. "Who says that exactly?"

"Well… me, now."

* * *

I think they're talking about Buffy... with the emotions and the pouting. hehe. he was gonna say "I just want the sex" but that seems a little out of character for our Spike. Either way, toilet paper. That's true you know, I think someone did a study - men fold theirs, women crumple. 


	21. Chapter 21

I was having this conversation with myself, or possibly my head was having this conversation with me - and I put it down here. It's appropriate, probably.

* * *

"When are you going to stop waiting for your life to start?" A shrug from the figure hunched awkwardly on the corner of the bed. "You have to. You have to stop waiting for them to fix things for you. You have to stop waiting for everything to be better. Your patience is killing you."

"Patience is a virtue."

"Well I don't know from _virtue _but I never got anything by standing still."

"Yeah, but did your impatience ever get _you _anything you wanted?"

He shook his head, chuckled in the low silky way he had, "No. But it's got me a few things I _need._"

Xander looked up, peat-bog eyes full of… something, and waited for the right words.


	22. Chapter 22

Irish whiskey apparently puts me in a good mood. Mmm Spike skin.

* * *

Xander decided it was a good thing he wasn't gay. Decided, when he saw his vampire roomie shirtless in his living room because his shirt had been ichored that licking his nipples would probably not go over well, decided that catching and sucking on Spike's pale, thin, and perfect wrists while the vampire was using them to orate their frustrating ineptitude would be an exceptionally bad idea. He decided that constant touches, kissing him beneath his ears while they watched sci-fi together would not be appreciated. Xander decided that running his fingers through Spike's hair, kissing the corners of his eyelids, rocking amorously in the cradle of Spike's lap – he decided that all of these things could be terminally stupid, and he'd decided that he wasn't gay. 

He also figured it was a good thing that Spike, one day, decided he was.


	23. Chapter 23

This came about as a direct result of a conversation I heard at work. The first line is a direct quote from a customer to her husband. Also - Gasp! Not Spander!

* * *

"Would you like a battle axe? It's 25 percent off." 

"…. Only a Scooby." Xander blinked and considered the offer while Buffy seemed to realize what she'd said with a heartfelt groan.

"You know, at one time that would have been a question about nailpolish."

Xander laughed companionably and slung an arm around his Slayer's shoulders. "I for one am not nostalgic for the days of 'Xander… does this shirt make my butt look big?' Because that… is a scary question."

"Psh." Buffy said lightly, leaning back into his chest letting her gaze meet the broadswords. "Like we ever left those days. Just get me into Neiman Marcus."

"You know… I think I'll be wanting that battle axe after all."


	24. Chapter 24 R RATED

* * *

Normally, my drabbles are written from the third person, and on one occasion the second- this one is not. I'm feeling distinctly Spike-like and I have this strange feeling that sex and violence all work the same for him. It's about Xander, probably. Warnings for... slightly scary imagery.

* * *

I'm obsessed with it. Driven by the need for it, a craving so overwhelming and so obscene I can almost feel my heart pounding with it and I just want to explode. I find myself snarling at nights, fingernails itching to tear, teeth aching to bite, skin raised and quivering as every moment I _don't _hurt you. Bloody Ada I'd like to hurt you – sink into your skin, feel the heat and the slickness on my fingers while you _scream. _I want to stick a straw in you, gnash and gnaw through the skin at your throat, feel you between my teeth and in my veins, smear you all over my skin and fuck you in it. I want to wake up in the night and do it again until I tire of you, hours, or weeks, or years – my bones crave you. I hate you. I'm obsessed with it. I want you.

* * *

And to think - I didn't even use the word 'blood' 


	25. Chapter 25

I've always secretly wanted to write this scene with as much smush and/or shock as I can possibly work in - I think this is the smush angle :D. Possibly inspired by TruffleMouse (this would be reremouse and savoy truffle... I might post on but I don't read here) and the fic "And let god do the rest" I'm sure you can find it if you google, if not... It's on Livejournal under Trufflemouse - it was amazing, you should read it, the thirteenth chapter made me say "Finally! Someone brings that up!"

Possibly I'll write this scene in context one day - wouldn't that be nice? But for now... more smush, commin' atcha.

* * *

Xander stood in the lobby of the New Watcher's Council in shock, fingers pressed lightly over his mouth to stop… something from emerging. But they don't stay there long. "Spike…" it's a rasp.

"Hello, love."

"I… what?" His vampire moved closer, invading his personal space if he'd had such concepts where Spike was concerned, and hesitated. "How?"

The cool white vampire hands that had been fluttering aimlessly settled, cupping themselves around his face and Xander leaned into the touch, desperate for it not to be another dream. "You're still wearing a patch…?"

"Glass eyes… too easy to magic, there was an incident… Spike?"

"Yes, love?"

"You're here."

"I am." He tugged Xander into a hug then, quite a feat these days, kissed forehead, cheeks, and chin, brushed the lightest and sweetest touch over Xander's mouth which gasped open to receive it.

"Are you staying?"

"As long as you want me."


	26. Chapter 26, R RATED for a bad word

heh, I've had a (bad) story idea bouncing around in my brain for months and I haven't bothered to really write it because of the sheer bad clicheness of it, so I've condensed pretty much the whole feature concept into a drabble. Go me. It's up to you to guess the context.

Oh - and R rated for a naughty word.

* * *

"I'm about to invite a soulless vampire into my home on good faith… I must be insane."

"Sorry Giles, I didn't know where else to go."

"I understand… please, come in. Both of you."

"I assure you sir," Said the gentlemanly Spike, "I am not a vampire nor am I lacking a soul."

Xander couldn't suppress the frustrated sigh. "Y'know…I'm almost starting to miss the old Spike."

"I do not understand… you've said many times over the hour that the old… er, Spike wished to do you some harm, yet you profess to miss him?"

"Yeah, but with that Spike you knew where you stood. He's a vampire, everyone else is meat, except Angel who's a cunt. He's a straightforward sort of guy."

The new not-Spike blinked at him. "I'm afraid I don't know your meaning of this word… cunt."

And Xander suddenly felt as though he'd cursed in front of his 90 year old grandmother. "Er…"

"And let that be a lesson to you about foul language." Giles said primly, and was forgiven because it was, after all, two in the morning.

* * *

In retrospect: slightly random. which I think is why I like it.


	27. Chapter 27

The Shmoop-Monster strikes again. One day I will be smothered in my own sap, dying a horrible sticky death and thus counter-balancing my slushariffic contributions to the world.

* * *

"I think I maybe kinda like you." Okay, no. That was too indecisive. I think, maybe – pathetic. He could do better than that. "I like you. A lot." Better. Much better. Xander was trying it on in the mirror, practicing Willow's resolve face and his own brand of frightening honesty in preparation for a confession that he was dying to make. Except it couldn't hurt to become a suave, debonair, ultra-cool guy that pulled in tons of money and could get anyone he wanted before making it; but since Xander wasn't immortal he figured a little practice would have to do.

"I like you. I… aw man, I can't just… say it…" His head dropped on the dresser, the hollow spot in his sock drawer echoing against his skull. Okay. One more time. "Here goes: Spike, I like you. There it is. I like you, and no amount of being a bastard will change that. So there." Oh that hadn't come out right at all.

"You do?"

"Gah!" Girly scream and Xander fell flat on his ass trying to spin around. So much for suave and debonair. "Damn vampires and their non-reflection-ness!"

"You like me?"

"I like you when you're not giving me a heart attack. Now help me up."

Spike looked inordinately pleased with himself as he hauled Xander to his feet. "You like me."


	28. Chapter 28

This is a tiny bit long for a drabble, and kinda sad without being sad since we all know how season 7 ends, but just imagine how bitter he must be? Also - I've been humped by the shmoop monster: apologies all around.

* * *

"God Xander…. I'm so sorry. I could've… I'm so sorry." Willow was crying on his couch and on his shoulder, which Xander reflected wasn't really fair but he let her get on with it, making shushing noises into her hair. "I… I asked Tara if she could heal you… she said…"

"She already did, Wills. I know she can't heal me, but she took away the pain. That makes a difference."

"I should've been there… Xander I should've… I have the mojo. I can break that stupid priest in half but I can't… I can't bring your eye back. I should've been there and I'm so sorry."

"Wills! Wills it's okay, it's… hell it's just an eye. It could've been so much worse."

"How?" Her voice was a thin creak of pain.

"I… could've lost an arm. And I need the arms for the useless flailing of weapons." Xander said brightly, thinking fast now the question had been asked. "Or a leg. And that would've made it much harder to run away. Or he could've ripped an ear off, horribly disfiguring me instead of giving me a suave patch – that wouldn't have been good." He would need both if work ever resumed, which somehow he doubted, because this wasn't a weekend apocalypse, and it wasn't something he expected to walk, stump, or crawl away from. "Oh! I know. Caleb could've pulled off my penis. That would have been infinitely worse than losing an eye. Tragic, in fact."

That finally elicited the chuckle he'd been waiting for, it was watery and pathetic, but it was a laugh. He kept it up, bad one-eyed-pirate jokes flying thick and fast, how grateful he was not to have a peg leg or a hook-hand. When Xander finally gently shoed her out, Willow was laughing.

By the time Spike got home from his reconnaissance, Xander's mood had worn away under pain meds and exhaustion. Tara had healed the mangled tissue of his socket, but there was a sharp headache hovering behind the gaping hole where his eye should be, and nothing could bury that. The vampire sat beside him on the couch, and as they leaned heavily against each other Xander was reminded that it could have been so much worse. He could've lost an arm, and he wouldn't be able to clutch Spike to him. He could have lost the leg that hooked itself across the backs of Spike's thighs and dragged him down. Could have lost the ear that the vampire murmured sweet apocalyptic nothings against.

Spike didn't stare at the socket in guilt, just kissed the corners of his eyelids before sinking into an orgasm induced coma. Xander figured there was worse than losing an eye to a battlefield, and followed him down the rabbit hole.

* * *

Toldja


	29. Chapter 29

Unadulterated Fluff - No excuses. Normally I don't condone this kind of thing but... I thought it was cute.

* * *

"Did you ever know that you're my hero?" Xander whispered magnanimously and Spike, not immediately understanding the context, cocked an eyebrow and nuzzled into Xander's neck.

Sun browned arms snaked around his waist and held the vampire in place while Spike murmured "Not so's I can remember."

"I can fly higher than an eagle." Xander continued mischievously and the reference clicked into place, causing Spike to growl, half-mortified and half loving this man for teasing him.

"Don't bloody start." He warned as Xander blorted into laugher, rolling them enough that he could hide his face in Spike's collar bone where he could giggle in relative privacy.

"You are the wind beneath my wings."

It emerged camp and choked with merriment, prompting Spike to say: "Marry me."

And they both burst into laughter but that didn't stop Xander from saying "Yes."

* * *

In case you don't remember, this is me poking fun at the Season 4 episode of Buffy - "Something Blue". Also - cuddles. I am a shmoop monster tonight.


	30. Chapter 30

I don't know where this came from, but it's refreshingly non sappy. I like to think of them as really close room mates, the kind you always wanted, but wound up only with the weird one that collects their sock lint? Yeah - those kinds of room mates.

Xander flung his leather briefcase towards his desk and didn't give a shit if it landed or not. "Hey." He said tiredly, and Spike, who was sitting in the living room "hey"d back, a very basic moment in a very basic routine.

"Bad day?" sometimes Spike could read him like an open book and he 'mm'd pathetically, digging ice out of the freezer and pressing it against his sunburned neck. "Frank, he of the impending stroke, or Jerry he of the Alzheimer's?"

"Both." Spike knew him too well.

"Chicken wings are in the oven." Sometimes it was creepy, how well Spike knew him, how easily the vampire anticipated his needs.

'Tequila-lime or buffalo hot wings?' he nearly asked.

"Tequila-lime." Spike answered his questions without ever hearing them.

"Holy shit." Xander said with mild surprise. "You really can read my mind."

"Well, yeah. I'm psychic. And no, there aren't any Oreos."

* * *

It would explain SO much.


	31. Chapter 31 R Rated

It's too short to be a story, but it was given a name. This is Role Reversals, and it's rated R.

He let it bite deep.

No one ever questioned why he only wore long sleeves, even in California where the sun was a constant menace and the bluebirds chirped. Shiny Happy People. R.E.M would be so fucking proud. No one ever asked, and that's the way he liked it.

He dragged sharply up.

They used him as glue. Least appreciated of the animal by-products. He was the guy that managed not to die over the weekend but missed a shift – called on account of apocalypse. He shifted from job to job, rubber ball, all as meaningless and unfulfilling as the last.

Gaping holes forced on the desperate.

Spike was soaked in his outpouring of malice. Disgust was a knife to cut tendons across and cut deep, vitally important – magnificently inconsequential. White wash for the brain and ice so sharp it burnt. Helpless, bound, soaked and drinking and dripping with his contempt. The world sunk down. Contracted - a last meal for the damned. Taken with desperate, fervent, seething resentment; consumed wholly.

His hands went numb.

The pain was unimportant; his, not theirs. Their pain was infinite and selfish, impossible to heal, and no longer his responsibility. He tried to explain to the captive in his barcalounger that it hurt like fuck and they'd get over it eventually, but Spike should know that. And so should he; rage and impotence and frustration at his inability to get anything right – even this. He was gone, red wet defiant deluge leaking fury and spite. The best kind of pain there was.

He bit back.

Self destructive tendencies they'd called it. Self preservation for the mortally ambiguous – liberation of the morally redundant. They could stake if they found the courage – and Xander drank the vampire down.


	32. Chapter 32

Er... this is something of an apology for the LAST drabble that got posted here. It's a little long but I wrote it at work the other day and thought I would share. MST by the way is pretty strictly euphemistic metaphor meant to be the punchline of a leading joke. Obviously. Er... mostly.

* * *

The night Xander Harris became a vampire was a strange one indeed. The way he told it, the Scoobies had been fighting the hazards of the Summer, hellmouth style. He said that Giant Mosquitoes had swooped out of the sky one night while he was patrolling with Spike – Spike had been scouting ahead for the hedgehog they were hunting, had been beset by his own mosquitoes, and couldn't get to Xander before one of the monster bugs landed on him.

The thing stabbed into an artery and sucked a pint off him before he could do anything to stop it. Spike had seen that Xander was in trouble though, and had rushed to his rescue just as the mosquito pulled its needle-like spear out of Xander's carotid. The vampire was hit in the face by a gush of hot, fresh arterial spray – his first in several years.

Spike had _meant _to help, he tried to put pressure on the wound, but having all that hot blood under his thumb, free of chip-induced agony, pumping and rushing just beneath his fingers, well… he couldn't resist a taste. It was enchanting, that throb under Spike's hand; every time the vampire slid his thumb away to 'inspect the wound' Xander's obliging heart delivered another sweet gush directly into his mouth – like Gatorade from a squeeze bottle – like a freshly tapped keg – like his very own, sweet, fountain of youth.

Xander said he hadn't minded. It hadn't hurt at all after the mosquito pulled away and Spike looked so darned _happy _about things that Xander had laughed delightedly every single time Spike pulled his hand away.

No one knew what happened after that. The way Xander told the story he'd passed out with a smile and Spike had apparently seen fit to keep him around for reasons previously unbeknownst to any of the Scoobies. When he woke up again he still had a soul – courtesy of Willow – and he didn't get his ass kicked nearly as often.

None of the Scoobies believed the story. Xander didn't expect them to because he changed it at least once a week. He and Spike spent their infinite time palling around, playing pool, and committing acts that their friends refused to acknowledge except for in the secret dark, when they were sometimes too vocal to help it. Like the time they'd had a Mystery Science Theater marathon and Xander fell off the couch laughing.

The stories got more and more outrageous every time Xander told it – Spike was usually in on it, embellishing the details and laughing uproariously when either of them mentioned aliens, chicken feathers, or killer cheesecake. No one understood why because he was the only person that knew the truth of it, and he wasn't telling.

"Without stories" they said, smiling "life is awfully boring for the dead."


	33. Chapter 33

I was feeling mathematical I guess... needed something cynical and solid to combat the recent cuteness. Can't see Xander as a math major, but I can see him rubbing the dog's nose in poo, y'know?

* * *

Xander was bent over a piece of paper, scribbling quietly, frowning. Spike was pouting across the table, and Xander pointedly did not look up - the vampire had said something unusually irritating, or he was feeling unusually sensitive to Spike's bluster, but it bothered him. Spike's bragging about his debt to the soul being nearly paid off, the balance of good and evil nearly restored because he'd rescued another three people tonight. Xander couldn't help but feel cheated, he carried the bruises, the injuries, and the guilt of failure every time something went awry, made his life more difficult daily for people that would never really care or realize why, and he had no debt to pay, had never taken a human life. He was the only person he knew that hadn't.  
He stopped scribbling for a moment, and Spike started rapping a beat on the table with his fingertips. "From the years 1753 to 1900 Angelus was in operation, correct?" Spike nodded warily - Xander had been ignoring him for the last five minutes and the buoyant feeling that had lifted him from the scene of the fight back to the apartment was sitting in his stomach now like a lead weight. Xander continued to scribble, and wouldn't look at him. "Working on the assumption that Angel never took a life after 1900, which is completely wrong by the way, but working on that assumption, and assuming he ate one person, that is killed one person, a day - that's fifty three thousand, six hundred and ninety two souls."  
Xander finally looked up, staring passively, and Spike returned the look guiltily. "Including leap years." Xander sounded like an accountant. "Want me to do you? Just tell me how many people you ate every day."  
"No." Spike felt his shoulders droop, "I get the point."


	34. Chapter 34

Not sure if this is cutesy, or really sort of depressing, but there's Spike. And Xander. So who cares, yeah? Also, evidence of actual research: egads.

* * *

On patrol a demon stuck his own knife in his thigh. When he got home he ate a slice of liverwurst and went to bed. He woke up the next morning and there was blood all over his sheets. The demon tied to his Barcalounger told him this job would kill him. Xander decided to take him at face value.

"Are you proposing a solution?"

Spike smiled, looked down at the ropes keeping him strapped to Xander's stripped down Portrait recliner, "Maybe."


	35. Chapter 35

So I might be an incredible Nerd but... I actually did this. 4 fairly short convresations about Xander's reading habits post Chosen... Cause he's pathetic just like me.

**

* * *

**

Kennedy

"Are you reading Faulkner?"

"Yeah… I'm kinda into books with big scary titles like 'The Sound and the Fury.' A little Southern Gothic never hurt anyone."

"Just surprised you can read is all."

"Not to sound like Spike, but… bugger off."

**Willow**

"Xand… are you reading Blake?"

"Yes. Heaven, hell, craziness. It reminds me of home. And I figure by now I've survived the hellmouth so I might as well get on with having read all the classics and sounding like a snooty guy."

"You're that bored huh?"

"Oh yeah."

**Giles**

"Xander? Are you reading Shakespeare?"

"One day… I will be able to quote this nonsense _and_ I'll know what it means."

"Try Macbeth. It's hard to confuse Macbeth."

"Thanks."

**Buffy**

"Xander… Yeats?"

"Yeah – I really don't have an excuse for this one."

"But… why Yeats?"

"It shares his name."


	36. Chapter 36

Not only did the shmoop monster bite me, it thoroughly slobbered me... Actually, I think I may have described the shmoop monster.

* * *

Xander's heart wants to explode out of his chest and wrap itself around the vampire. Which is ridiculous, and stupid, and wholly impractical. Like there's a giant raspberry tentacle monster living in his chest cavity eager to eat Spike whole, consuming him from the inside and desperate for more; the Alien that one-ups Sigourney Weaver and makes it down to earth for the total destruction of all things Xander; a giant man-eating plant of a heart that wants to slowly masticate Spike until the vampire is part of him on the cellular level. He's mixing his metaphors, worse, he's mixing similes and he feels like a moron, but he loves, and everything the vampire does, every slime-coated moment, every furious glower at him or on his behalf makes the gnawing desire worse – or better – until Xander thinks he will explode. Spatter Xandery bits across the marble floors of their home and leave this terrible/terrific/terrifying thing standing where he was. There is no soothing it, Xander's not sure he wants to.


	37. Chapter 37

So... I had this idea and decided "maybe I'll work it into a story somehow" then decided "No, my big stories are all so flippin dire and really there is no excuse for this" which sounds AWFULLY familiar, so it wound up in my drabbles book. Here you have a poem from Spike to Xander, completely random bit of fluff with no technical merit whatsoever though it is a classic sonnet, and it IS in iambic pantameter. ...I was VERY bored. Er, it helps if you read the questions and the narrative seperately - you'll see what I mean.

* * *

**A Silly Sonnet**

Can someone pull a spleen out through a nose?

You have a knack for asking this and that –

Or beat someone to death with their own toes?

Your questions pulled like rabbits from a hat.

Like, have you ever been to Amsterdam?

I'll give you truths whenever you desire

(or fornicated loudly with a ram?)

Even though you often call me "liar."

What is her dress size? if you had to guess.

Because despite the answers you demand

The Heart's between the fourth and fifth ribs, yes?

You'll never ask the question that's at hand.

If you ever find the nerve to ask

I'll answer "yes, I love you. Pass the flask?"


	38. Chapter 38

Feel free to blame three things for this: One, some of the fairly iconic Spike pictures available for viewing on the world-wide web (particularly the series with the black leather pants and the heavy chain necklace? You know the one). Two; we're discussing the modernist movement in lit class and the whole... fragmented consciousness and mourning the lack of coherency and meaning in life etc. And Three, cravings for cigarettes leave me with cravings for other, slightly strange physical contacts. I was eating green olives for breakfast. Too long for a drabble explanation. Sorry

* * *

The vampire gave him that sharp, inquisitive look, head to the side, eyes and eyebrows frighteningly focused on him. He looked almost avian in those moments, nose and mouth and cheekbones all drawn down into one sharp razor point, hawk-eyes keeping his mousy little self in place with a sneer. In those moments Xander wanted to hold his face, break him back into human, or… not-exactly-human. He had an almost overwhelming urge – for some absurd reason – to push gentle fingers against Spike's face, mold him back like play-doh [would his skin be malleable and soft, or like smooth amorphous marble?], push his mouth into a smile, smooth the concentrated lines of his forehead, nudge that sharp and elegant nose until Spike laughed or tried to bite his fingers off. Then the moment broke, and the vampire turned away – suddenly humanoid – which was a relief and a disappointment so tearing he gasped.

"Oh, hey Buff. What's up?"


	39. Chapter 39

I haven't indulged in one of these in a long time...

* * *

We never really took the time to mourn, he said, laying in bed later that night. That night, the one he'd dreamt about in some form or another, the heart-stopping shock of it that hadn't come but had been replaced by a deafening swoop of hope and despair that sent him to his knees. That night, the night that Spike – dead, gone, un-mourned Spike – caught him. And he told the vampire, laying beside him in bed, sweat-tacky and introspective, touching only at the lower arm, "We never really took the time to mourn you."

"Should you have?" Alive again, and beautiful for all that he smoked too much and drank too much and ate too little on account of too much soul. Spike had always been a bit of a shit for hard questions.

"Maybe. I did a lot of traveling after Sunnydale – I guess I just wanted to get out and see everything that I'd been missing. I mourned for Anya, and for all those poor girls... every morning for a year I woke up thinking about her until it just... didn't hurt as bad, but I never actually... mourned you." He was grieving now, feeling the ache of having lost a comrade and companion swell up in his chest, a balloon with needles, an icy cactus in his heart, grieving for having lost, and having had returned, and the guilt of not having noticed it's absence. He had, though, noticed, it caught him off guard, in cities all over the world the sweep of a coat would become Spike's, a flash of blonde in the distance would fill him with that impossible lurch of recognition before it crashed over him that his old life was gone and everything with it, and he was utterly alone. "I should have... I want to be happy you're back, I want to... be angry you didn't call us, I..."

"Shh shh shh." Spike whispered, rolling to blanket Xander's body with his own, riding out desperate sobs as the man clutched at him, kissing away the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. "I missed you too."


	40. Chapter 40

* * *

Okay, so a friend and I have been watching Buffy (He's new to it, I'm old hat, it's a blast) and we've just watched through Lover's Walk. That's really all this is about "She didn't even care enough to set me on fire."

* * *

The headline on the May 10, 2072 edition of the Cyber Hearld read "Dead Man Clutching Jar of Dirt Found in Park." Not the most compelling headline ever to grace the Herald, but the newslinks didn't know the whole story, and they never would. They would never know that the man in the park had once gone by the name Alexander Harris, and they would never know that the jar of dirt were the only earthly remains of an infamous and noble vampire called William the bloody. They would never know that the very old man and his young-looking companion had wandered, arm-in-arm, to the willow tree they'd planted together some thirty years before in memory of a fallen friend, they couldn't guess at the patience and the love the vampire had shown as he helped his human companion to the spot, careful of a replaced knee, and painfully arthritic hips. They wouldn't know how the old man's hand shook as he raised a stake, slowly placing the point against the demon's chest, or how he cried when the vampire smiled. "Thank you." The vampire had whispered, though the human's hearing had long-since gone under the aural stress of decades of war. They would never know or explain how the man had kissed the vampire, tenderly, forehead, nose, cheeks, like he had so many times before in their seventy year romance, or how his voice, reedy and cracked with age explained and apologized and begged, "I love you."

"You care," The vampire muttered, rolling his forehead against his lover's, because they'd had this conversation before and the human didn't need to hear the words, "and I won't live without you."

The police found the last of the evidence, the Herald ran the story, but they would never know the details.

Spike knew that he clutched Xander to him and loved him until the minute the stake pierced his heart.

Xander knew that he carefully, mourning, scooped the pile of ash into a Mason jar and sat down to wait, a difficult process with ancient joints and fading muscles, but it would be over soon; he hadn't had his medicine all week.


	41. Chapter 41

Apparenty I'm a drabble mavrick this week - and they're all depressing... wonder what that's about....

* * *

"You never overlook anyone." Xander said with a strange, dull, sense of acceptance, the tendons of his neck moved in quiet rhythm under the fingertips that lingered there, a nearly gentle caress. Spike didn't respond, "It's almost charming."

He was the first, he knew that, but he certainly wouldn't be the last. Xander saw it all coming down the pipe, all of it on Buffy's head, and he hurt for her now more than he hurt for himself. That would change, because Spike never forgot anyone, and Xander never could keep his mouth shut. "Angel almost killed me once." The hand on his neck _squeezed_ for just one heart-stopping moment before releasing again, Xander felt his heart pound, "I wasn't important enough," he gagged out when he'd caught his breath, "I wasn't the girl. And I'm not the girl now... but you always did have an eye for details."

"Think I like being prince charming." Spike said finally, hand slipping down and away from Xander's neck to set on his shoulder with feather-light weight that Xander knew would be bruising if he struggled – he didn't struggle. The fangs in his neck felt like living fire, ripping across his jugular, radiating waves of heat and agony across his flesh until sensation sunk under the cool, bluish haze of blood loss. When prince charming kissed him, in those last fading moments of consciousness, he tasted blood, and hoped it was his own.


	42. Chapter 42

This was scribbled at the bottom of my only final that has nothing to do with Shakespeare this semester...

* * *

"I know they say there are stranger things in heaven and earth…"

"Don't you dare misquote too-oft quoted Hamlet at _me_." He overrode her with a scowl.

Undaunted, she pressed on, "But I've seen stranger things. I mean… Slayed stranger things, seen the innards of a lot of stranger things but this, Spike, this!" He waited with a raised eyebrow for the moment of dramatics to come to a halt, and she paused for a moment, abashed but forthright, "This is strange."

"S'no weirder than you and me, really."

"Oh no, that was… and this is… No. Totally different." She froze for a minute, sat down with a heavy sigh, "You and Xander? Really?"

"Doubt thou the stars art fire, doubt thou the sun doth move…" He murmured wistfully, and finally she grinned, no understanding but recognition.

For a moment she sighed, re-living the days when he smiled like that for her. There was a pregnant silence, the end of things, and the beginning of other things. Finally, she said, "I really quoted Hamlet?"


	43. Chapter 43

So I wrote 3 drabbles last night, god knows why, and here they are in quick succession. Two of them are quite possibly sickeningly sweet, the last is... not.

* * *

Spike was ranting. That was a new thing. And a loud thing. And an unexpected thing, because Spike had never given two shits before. And Xander's ears were burning with shame because he was an idiot, and he was clumsy, and that demon almost had his rib cage out, and without Spike there it would have gone very poorly indeed. With Spike around he was useless, and pathetic, and incapable of taking care of himself, and needed looking after. But he was also conveniently alive; which meant when the vampire was done yelling at him, Xander had ample time to go home to his empty apartment and brood on the implications of this lecture.

The vampire sucked in a breath to carry on – a relief at last because Spike, when he was of a mind, had staying power that rivaled Giles in the loquacity department. Xander cut in while he still had the chance, "Spike… what is all of this in aid of? Buffy's dead so you've taken over her role as resident ball-breaker?"

"No, you berk, it's about keeping you alive." Spike glowered, using vampire facial expression number three right after the leer, and Xander did not believe the refutation for even a moment. The expression relented and slipped into something Xander had never seen before. "It's just… you're not immortal. So one day, you're all going to die… and I'll be alone again."


	44. Chapter 44

Remember I said sickeningly sweet? The last one... might not have been, this one DEFINITELY is.

* * *

Stunned was a good word as words go. It was one of the nicer ones, easy to spell, certainly, and apropos to life on the hellmouth. Typically, Stunned was not a part of Xander's vocabulary. He liked words with a little bit of bluster, absurd words with a little bit of energy that went along of wide gestures – words that could get a laugh. So when it came to shock and confusion, Xander generally opted for flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and occasionally dumbfounded. But Stunned. Stunned was good, almost onomatopoeic in quality, a short sharp "St" to the head followed by a long and resonant "unnnnnnnn" reverberating around his skull, a buzz which obscured all other noise beyond recognition. Yes. Xander was stunned, and so he thought he'd heard something which he could not have heard. "Uh… what?"

"I think," Said the man who'd done the stunning, "I'm falling in love with you."

"We're not even friends." the reply was vague and unconsidered, and Spike's hopeful expression plummeted. Not that he'd ever been friends with any of the women he'd fallen into bed with. That was the formula – declarative statement, physicality, and only then was there anything like affection or even familiarity. But Spike, who'd fallen on this particular sword more times than Xander could count, probably knew what he was talking about. "Can we try to be friends first? It's this new thing I'm trying."

Stunned took a back-seat to Pleased when Spike smiled and said, "I can live with that."


	45. Chapter 45

Not sweet. Not even remotely.

* * *

Xander woke bruised, stinging and alone – utterly alone. Unexpected relief. So too was the headache, pounding under his eyes, the slow-slow throb at the back of his head that meant something important. Awake, and alone, and alive. The trifecta. In the seconds it took to process this information he was moving, leaping off the bed, naked and unsubtle, half running half stumbling to the half-open door, desperate and hopeful for the first time in days… and brought up short. A sharp tug at his ankle, a crack and a white explosion of pain where his knee hit the concrete floor of the warehouse, and a dark chuckle from the shadowy corner of the room where he hadn't, in fact, been alone. Xander didn't need to look. He heard the clink of the chain, felt, now that he was awake and abandoned in reality, the cool and impermeable steel encircling his ankle. He didn't need to look, and while Spike walked up behind him, boots stopping to rest against his vulnerable skin, he began to cry.


	46. Chapter 46

Haven't written one this short in a LONG time. Maybe ever.

* * *

Xander's never been afraid of contact. In the moments where he slings a friendly arm around a shoulder, or, without thinking, drags the fallen comrade away from an enemy, it's casual, thoughtless, comfortable; the only physical contact Spike has that isn't violent. It's so bloody appreciated that, for once, Spike has no words. So he doesn't say anything.


	47. Chapter 47

So. Not Spander. Not anything really, but I like this notion. Hopefully, someday, I'll use it somewhere else entirely.

* * *

He nudged the shivering, mindless wreck with the toe of his boot. He didn't have a name here. Chaos slipped and slid around them, colors and waves of oily and sharp and screaming whispers washing through and around the two vampires as their eyes met for the first time in a hundred years. The smaller of the two scowled darkly as he reached down to pick the emaciated creature up by the scruff of his neck; holding on to a familiar shape only because he knew in his blood what shape his sire had been before – in the other – the place that was real. Hell dimensions; the Older Race could keep them. "Only doin' this so Dru'll stop moanin' about it. You could stay and rot, were it up to me."

And then he _threw_ – the mewling twisting shape flying through and out while the un-world dissolved around him, melting and shimmering and emptying away to reveal a hot and empty room in Brazil. He'd been gone two minutes, and he'd been gone a hundred years. Spike stretched the kinks out of his shoulders, shrugged on his duster, and went to find himself a drink. He needed a hair cut.


	48. Chapter 48

Just a drabble. Possibly Canonical. Enjoy

* * *

They'd shared an orange once, on a quiet starlit hill, a corpse cooling beside the shoes Dru had kicked off in a fit of merriment. He wrote her a poem on the long stripe of orange skin and she carried it with her until it stopped smelling of sweet, spicy citrus, became only a fragment of words, and washed away on a tide of blood. It was funny, how universes changed - or possibly just changed hands. Dru had been his universe once, but now, presumably, belonged to someone else. And so did he.


	49. Chapter 49

The parts that are true really happened. The parts that aren't... may've happened to someone else?

* * *

"Hah! Tetris!"

Spike Spun around, snarling. The emergency room waiting area was cold; there was a television in the corner broadcasting court TV, and he'd already sat in some gum. And then there was Xander. "What the hell, Harris?"

"What?" Xander's eyebrows shot up when he caught the look on Spike's face, "It's four lines at once…"

"Buffy is back there maybe…" he couldn't finish the sentence. "Buffy is back there and you're playing Tetris!"

Xander gave him an old look and collapsed the phone, "What would you prefer me to do, Spike? The demon's dead – thank you – Giles and Willow are on the magic thing, and the doctors are sewing Buffy's guts back in." He said it with a frankness that hurt. "I could run for donuts…?"

"No. I don't know… just, Tetris?"

Xander offered him a smile that was full of sympathy, and pressed the phone into his hand, "Play a game with me, it'll take your mind off being helpless."


	50. Chapter 50

Holy bananas, Batman! 50 of these things! and... naturally the 50th one would be this. I really did have this dream, except... it wasn't Spike, it was Wil Wheaton... What the hell is wrong with me?

* * *

"Ah God, Wills, it was horrible."

She chuckled at him softly, all collegiate confidence and first-semester psychology classes as they sipped frosty coffee on a picnic table outside her dorm. He'd paid in exchange for a concoction of rue and hensbane."It was just a dream, Xander."

"I have to be under a spell or something, I mean, what the heck kind of guy dreams about getting pregnant?" That came out a little loud, and a guy coming out of the dorm raised an eyebrow. He dropped his voice to a hiss. "It was a spell, I know it! I mean… Spike?"

"Xander… why would anyone send you a nightmare about… being pregnant with Spike's baby?"

"I don't know! To freak me out? It's working – witness the freakage. I mean… I was happy, freaked out but…glowing!"

"You were… happy?" Willow's voice sounded like she was trying to strangle herself from the inside.

Xander couldn't stop the glare. "That was the weirdest part. I kept thinking how I'd have to protect it, and what I was going to name it, and Giles was there telling me I needed to start eating right and… Spike kept trying to pay for things and… he took us out to lunch, Will. That's just not right!"

"I think you're over reacting."

"He was still in his chair when I woke up! Smirking! Like he knew!"

"Maybe you're about to start your period," Willow murmured contemplatively, slurping the dregs of her frosty-mocha-chino-thingie with a rumble.

"I hate you. I really do."


	51. Chapter 51 Bit dark, this

Wrote something a bit dark this time around... something fundamental in my nature rebelling against the image of Caring, Loving, Mournful Spike that you've been seeing from Rides a Pale Horse... You've been warned

* * *

"I think I brought you here" the voice husked out, quiet and broken, dancing on his skin when he pushed closer, closer eliciting a pained grunt.

In, and warm, with sharp fingers digging long grooves in Xander's shoulders, kneading and molding soft flesh that blossomed blues and purple at his whims. No teeth, not yet, he wanted the boy crying, humming arpeggios to his careful hands; breathed himself closer, and Spike husked back, "How's that, lovely?"

The grind of bones in his wrists, tight and crumbling beneath Spike's palms and the boy _whimpered_ and was kissed for his efforts. "Said…" he choked, when he had his mouth back, "said… 'as long as nothing bad…' brought you here."

"Mmm. Thanks for that, then" and thrust.


	52. Chapter 52

Technically, this is a one liner. And TECHNICALLY that's not supposed to happen on eff eff dot net, but here's the thing... you use as many words as you need to get the point across, and sometimes... that's not a lot. So here's Drabble seven hundred and eighty two thousand... A one liner.

* * *

Xander laughed, sharp sudden and apropos of nothing. "I'm going to hell." The vampire on the couch raised an eyebrow. "It's just… your mouth is perfect."


	53. Chapter 53

Another one of these things I guess.

* * *

If anything, Xander was grateful the kick in the teeth had been metaphorical in nature because he was fairly sure his dentist's office was buried under several thousand tons of rubble. It was little things he thought of as he teetered dangerously on the edge of the world – because that's what the crater had been. They saved the world and lost it all in the same breath. And of course it had been Spike that reduced his universe to rubble; the man knew how to leave an impression – unlike Anya, apparently, who only left Andrew. A hot, tight ball of grief welled in his throat, pushing its way into his lungs and making breathing impossible, but he was there to catch Buffy when the hole in her side was finally too much, and there were no tears because the salt burned in the hole in his face. There was only endless contemplation of the little things, but Xander would not have been surprised to know there was a hole in the world.


	54. Chapter 54

This is just... a thing. Not a Christmassy thing - don't let the date fool you. :-)

* * *

Ugh he was tired, a stiffness lingering in his bones from last night, or any dozen last nights he could name. Tired and the light filtering through the curtains, dark as they were, made him want to bury himself in blankets until it went away. Was he cold too? He might have been cold. And someone down the street must have been doing construction, because there were a ring of jackhammers around his head, loud and thunk-thunk-thunking into old, dead wood. He felt himself start to groan, start to snarl with morning grumpiness and was glad, for once, that Anya hadn't stayed over. Cold and tired and surrounded by noise and light and now his face was itchy and he just wanted to sleep, but there was a nagging in his gut telling him he was hungry too, and what the hell had he gotten up to yesterday that would leave him feeling like a hung-over Fyarl?

One of the jackhammers hissed, urgently and low, "What the hell did you do?" But it didn't make any sense, because he hadn't done anything, and maybe he was dreaming. Still asleep, still asleep and when he finally pried himself out of bed there would be a heap of pancakes the size of his head. It felt like a pancake kind of morning. Maybe with bacon. Lots of crackly, meaty bacon. Maybe he'd skip the pancakes altogether and order a steak.

"Couldn't stop it." Another low rumble, like gravel in a plastic vat – the concrete was stirring in his head, and in the dream he reached for it, tried to pour it over himself.

Thunk-thunk-thunk. "He wouldn't want this." He took a sucking breath and held it, rolled over to feel the rubber-band stretch and pull in each frozen muscle, fingers extending like cat's claws on the ends of his hands and lungs slowly pushing the air out between his teeth. It was the best kind of languorous Sunday morning stretch, spine-cracking, toe-curling arc from hip to shoulder, and he would be having a word with his city council members – preferably non-demonic – because the hammering was right on top of him, insistent and pressing and he just wanted to reach out and take it away.

He thought he was awake, no one could sleep in these conditions, not with this light threatening to melt his retinas, not with the noise and the chill and the hunger eating at him. He thought he was awake, but it didn't make sense, because the jackhammer said "I'm so sorry, Xander" before a sharp and sudden starburst of pain in his chest exploded and consumed him.


	55. Chapter 55

Turning my "Fuck me, I'm broke!" angst into entertainment one drabble at a time...

* * *

He was out of a job again. Again and again and again and there had never been a time when he wasn't hunting for one. Job security was a thing for people with great phone personalities and matching socks. What he had was definitely closer to insecure. And the constant feeling of rejection could be grating, he supposed, rejection and unworthiness and mild panic because every time someone didn't call him back, and every time he was fired, or every time Slaying burnt yet another tenuous bridge, it was a door slamming in his face, an avenue closed to him, and he was trapped in a small town with no job prospects and a vampire on his couch offering to share the remote during _Passions_. It was this and only this, the threat of daytime television, sitting in his boxers for days on end with Spike, who was starting to be funny, that got him to call the Doublemeat. Maybe they were hiring…


	56. Chapter 56

I was trying to think up fun things in the car and then I needed an excuse to use them... so this happened.

* * *

Spike was better at the insults and the death threats, usually. He was a little quicker on the uptake, a little more droll, and he made it sound natural when he said things like _"If you so much as look sideways at him, I'll sautee your eyes in duck sauce and eat them,"_ or _"Touch him and I'll carve your ribs into a xylophone and make you play it,"_ or Xander's personal favorite, _"He gets hurt and I'll rip your arms off and shove them so far up your arse you spit fingers, get me?" _Spike was definitely better at the death threats - it was probably the experience - but Spike wasn't here, and Xander had to improvise when he said, "If anything happens to him, Riley Finn, I will kill you. It won't be creative, it may not even be slow, but you will be dead, and I will get him back."

It did the job.


	57. Chapter 57

I love webcomics - especially ones that aren't serial (though I enjoy those as well). I'm gaga for Penny Arcade, XKCD, SMBC, and A Softer World. And... while I've known about this comic for a LONG time, something grabbed me the other day and I couldn't resist this...

* * *

Spike snickered. Xander felt his eyebrow twitch, but didn't look away from the plans he was carefully sketching on a piece of graph paper. Then the vampire snorted, amused and not sardonic, and Xander cast a glance over his shoulder. Spike was on the laptop, muddy boots propped up on the coffee table, so nothing even remotely unusual there, so he turned back to the potential re-model of the basement with a shrug. The next time the blonde chuckled, it was a force of will not to look around again, not to confirm his secret suspicion that, even after years of a pleasant domestic non-aggression treaty, Spike was laughing at him. When it happened again a few minutes later, a solid guffaw hastily smothered by a palm, Xander was casual about it, climbed out of his chair, stretched a bit, and headed for the kitchen, ostensibly for a soda and the chance to peck Spike on one of those high narrow cheekbones, but really to peer over the vampire's shoulder at whatever was so damned funny. Saw the shadowy outlines of a man in a hockey mask, straining against gravity, read: "Helpful hint #97: Lightly coat your machete with non-stick cooking spray for ease of removal."

This time, he and Spike laughed together.

* * *

To read all about Butch and his murderous shenanigans - head to choppingblock dot keenspot dot com. I don't own Butch, I wouldn't even pretend to, and hopefully his real dark master, Lee Adam Harold, won't mind a bit of free pimping.


	58. Chapter 58

You get two today because I woke up this morning, fell into an anxiety attack, heard my upstairs neighbors going at it and... that's too good not to share.

* * *

The guys who lived in 3b were assholes. She didn't mind so much when they came home covered in stinky gunk – something about working in pest control the tall one told her when she asked – it wasn't that much worse than the guy across the hall in 2c who was constantly cooking with garlic and cumin and all sorts of other unidentifiable olfactory noise that soaked into the carpet and made her have to run the fan constantly. Febreeze was a godsend. But they were still assholes because they were constantly sniping at each other. The noise floated through her window at all hours of the night – the gate would skreeeeeelCRASH, desperately in need of some WD-40, and then there were two voices, one snapping and grating like an alligator, the other soft and low and generally beyond hearing so she only caught half the conversation and even that was mangled. Which was probably not a lot worse than when she talked to herself on the way in like the nutty old bag-lady she was destined to become because the gate screamed for everyone, and she was sure her neighbors didn't need to hear her thoughts on network television. But it was the principle of the thing. They were assholes because… right on cue it came echoing through the floorboards – thunk thunk thunk thunk, fast and strong – and Ohgod ohgod ohgod Oooooooah! – eight feet above her head. He had to be using _something_ for leverage because there was some admirable consistency happening there before AAAAAAAAAGH FUCK! And silence. She hadn't been laid in months, and they were _such_ assholes. But at least this time the plaster hadn't come down.


End file.
